VN Unity Netorase Phone [v0.8.5] [Le Stag]

[Le Stag]

That's good, because there are a lot of little issues past chapter 3 that should probably be looked at as well. Typos, the incorrectly tagged messages I mentioned earlier, that kind of thing.

I am curious about a couple things, mildly related. One, what is the intended tone of the 'balance' route? Is it supposed to be a midpoint between dom/sub, or a mix? Cause I remember a few times thinking along the lines of "wow, that's kinda mean" while playing balanced. Nothing specific, just a feeling.
Two, and this one might be too much too early or tell, but will there be distinct 'routes' for the three Tendencies?

I'm thinking about doing some scenes exclusive to specific routes. It may require more work, as you said. I'll have to see.

For the Balanced route, I try to mix both dom & sub, without going too far in each. Basically, I see it as Laura being herself, without any input from your part on how the relation should evolve. And because Laura is a tease, it may go to her dom side a bit more.

 

[Eidolic]

I see it as Laura being herself, without any input from your part on how the relation should evolve. And because Laura is a tease, it may go to her dom side a bit more.

And because the MC not giving any input on how the relationship should evolve is a more submissive thing to do, it also pushes her more towards teasing. That actually makes a lot of sense.

Cautiously optimistic with how things seem to be turning out, excited to see where things go from here. Game could end up being something very special indeed by the time it's finished.

 

[jaques]

as long as there's consent from both part

Debatable.
Quite a few moments where consent is either forced on the player (which you can argue) with a "yes" or "yeah" choice. But also quite a few moments where the reply was "well, I am going to do it anyway". Or where there is no choice to begin with (going raw for example).

Also, the conversation about setting limits has come up a couple of times, but the conversation to actually set limits never happens.

 

[deviousstorm]

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‘Version 0.8 being a "general improvements" update’

Changes for save system.
Changes on some of the photo
View attachment 3859265

A little sad as I prefer the first line but it is for consistency

Hurrah! Lets gooo.

can't wait to see the .8 changes and what he is going to do. Love this slow grilled story.

 

[deviousstorm]

I'm thinking about doing some scenes exclusive to specific routes. It may require more work, as you said. I'll have to see.

For the Balanced route, I try to mix both dom & sub, without going too far in each. Basically, I see it as Laura being herself, without any input from your part on how the relation should evolve. And because Laura is a tease, it may go to her dom side a bit more.

Yeah take your time man. This is always a very hard thing to balance especially in game design, having designed a visual novel, I know its pretty hard to like map out all the choices. Idk if you have yet, but a user journey map might help with this especially for you to track everything a player can do. So that way you can narrow down some choices or merge out so you don't have giant spider web of choices.

Its okay for some choices to just end entire scenarios! Which you seem to be doing with Ashley!

 

[Eidolic]

Quite a few moments where consent is either forced on the player (which you can argue) with a "yes" or "yeah" choice. But also quite a few moments where the reply was "well, I am going to do it anyway". Or where there is no choice to begin with (going raw for example).

Also, the conversation about setting limits has come up a couple of times, but the conversation to actually set limits never happens.

This is mostly the result of the intent of the game I suspect. The game's premise is about a fully consensual NTS relationship that you, the player, are in control of to some degree every step of the way. But realistically, that's impossible. You can't give players the option to say no to getting cucked, for example, otherwise your NTS game is no longer an NTS game. If you give the player the power to say no to anything and everything, then they may end up at the end of 0.7.1 with Laura only going as far as kissing--it's too many variables to keep track of, and too many scene variants to make.

On the other hand, there are certain things that currently must happen when they probably should be optional (such as going raw)... if the MC is meant to be a self-insert.

Right now, he's not. He's a weird mix of faceless insert and independent character, so it leads to discord like this. You can influence his decisions in some ways, but he's still making his own choices at the end of the day. Unless Stag is planning on adding and editing a ridiculous amount of content for story already touched on, it'll probably be best to think of the MC as his own character with his own agency that you occasionally can direct instead of a full self-insert.

In this light, I strongly suspect we are meant to believe the conversation about limits actually did happen, just offscreen. Same as all the reclaiming sex--MC and Laura have a very active relationship, but we haven't seen one scene about it yet because that's not what the game is about.

 

[fbass]

This is mostly the result of the intent of the game I suspect. The game's premise is about a fully consensual NTS relationship that you, the player, are in control of to some degree every step of the way. But realistically, that's impossible. You can't give players the option to say no to getting cucked, for example, otherwise your NTS game is no longer an NTS game. If you give the player the power to say no to anything and everything, then they may end up at the end of 0.7.1 with Laura only going as far as kissing--it's too many variables to keep track of, and too many scene variants to make.

On the other hand, there are certain things that currently must happen when they probably should be optional (such as going raw)... if the MC is meant to be a self-insert.

Right now, he's not. He's a weird mix of faceless insert and independent character, so it leads to discord like this. You can influence his decisions in some ways, but he's still making his own choices at the end of the day. Unless Stag is planning on adding and editing a ridiculous amount of content for story already touched on, it'll probably be best to think of the MC as his own character with his own agency that you occasionally can direct instead of a full self-insert.

In this light, I strongly suspect we are meant to believe the conversation about limits actually did happen, just offscreen. Same as all the reclaiming sex--MC and Laura have a very active relationship, but we haven't seen one scene about it yet because that's not what the game is about.

Blows my mind when people play these type of VNs and try to avoid the main theme, not sure what they expect

 

[Eidolic]

Blows my mind when people play these type of VNs and try to avoid the main theme, not sure what they expect

I mean I can see the appeal of it. Being able to say no to everything (even if it leads to an immediate game over because heyo, you say no to all the content you get no content) is a hell of a good way to make the player feel like they're in control of the situation. And I think that's what most people are afraid of with this kind of subject matter--losing control. For the fantasy to become reality, despite what they want. When the fetish is about playing with fire, it's inevitable different people will have different ways of avoiding getting burned.

 

[JimMorrison19]

I like the game. It took me a while to figure out how to save the game, but once I did, it's simple. I have not been able to figure out how to make it windowed rather than full screen. That would be nice.

 

[Swagylord1337]

Hurrah! Lets gooo.

can't wait to see the .8 changes and what he is going to do. Love this slow grilled story.

First row of pictures is the best one, kidna sad it is inconsistent

 

[aqd]

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‘Version 0.8 being a "general improvements" update’

Changes for save system.
Changes on some of the photo
View attachment 3859265

A little sad as I prefer the first line but it is for consistency

Yeah, that top row is great! I don't even mind the inconsistency myself.

 

[meuh_trash]

I like the game. It took me a while to figure out how to save the game, but once I did, it's simple. I have not been able to figure out how to make it windowed rather than full screen. That would be nice.

Alt + enter
That will do the trick

 

[r0ckh0und]

I like the game. It took me a while to figure out how to save the game, but once I did, it's simple. I have not been able to figure out how to make it windowed rather than full screen. That would be nice.

Window mode

For some unity games you can leave fullscreen modus by pressing alt+enter and resize the window with the mouse cursor by holding left click.
On other games you can create and edit a shortcut to the game.exe by adding command lines to it.
Place the arguments at the end of the 'Target' field.
As an example:
Right click on shortcut and press on properties.
Target line at the end should look like this->
"...\...\NetorasePhone-0.5.1\Netorase Phone.exe" -screen-width 1600 -screen-height 900 -screen-fullscreen 0

 

[resident dumbass]

the fuck? a western-made game that's getting consistent updates? a texting game with prose that doesn't make the player consider suicide? ai art usage that actually looks good? humiliation and sph even but the mc and gf can still have fun one-on-one?

what selection of endangered animals was sacrificed to get this game into production?

my only comment is that i think the submissive endgames should still incorporate a good amount of "vanilla" scenes with laura. without a believably wholesome relationship running in parallel to the debauchery, nts can feel too close to proto-ntr. from what i've played the game is doing a very good job straddling the balance so far.

 

[igi28]

The plot is wonderful, but unfortunately the dom/sub line is weak... Only a few additional sentences.
Even though I chose not to "reclaim" her, it still happens.

 

[idkmanerally]

yea im not offended by the dom/sub stuff but it feels soooo tacked on. it doesn't change the overall tenor of the conversation, it just sprinkles lines in. very unconvincingly implemented

 

[Le Stag]

I'm still a bit "shy" on the dom/sub lines because I feel Laura would, at that point, still be a bit shy herself about it. But now that Part 1 is finished, I plan on pushing it more, starting with Chapter 19 (that will release with 0.9), that will put the emphasis on that specific side of the relationship.

But if, in the future, you still feel it's underwhelming, I'll try to improve that.

 

[Pldantex]

I plan on pushing it more, starting with Chapter 19 (that will release with 0.9)

Will 0.8 have no new content and be fully about improving the current chapters?

 

[Le Stag]

I like the game. It took me a while to figure out how to save the game, but once I did, it's simple. I have not been able to figure out how to make it windowed rather than full screen. That would be nice.

Next version will have a toggle in Settings to toggle Fullscreen.

 

[Le Stag]

Will 0.8 have no new content and be fully about improving the current chapters?

It's mostly improvements, but that includes a bit of new content. Nothing major, but about the size of an additional chapter of new content sprinkled at different points of the existing story. With a few new pictures on top of the "remastered" ones.